Tuesday, August 20, 2013

The current BRAI bill was drafted in a secretive fashion with no
opportunity for the general public to comment on a legislation which
deals with something of this magnitude- the safety of our food.

There is an inherent conflict of interest with the proposed BRAI
being located within the Ministry of Science and Technology, a body who
also has a mandate to promote GM crops.

In the BRAI bill there is not even a mention of independent long
term bio-safety testing and assessments of GM crops which is crucial to
assess their safety for the present and the future.

It is a centralised and narrow decision making process with no
effective mechanism of consultation from the public which is against the
spirit of democracy.

There is no mechanism of transparency. Worse, the BRAI bill will
bypass the citizen’s right to information by overriding the Right to
Information Act.

The BRAI bill takes away the decision making authority of the state
governments in open releases of GM crops, including for experiments. It
supersedes the constitutional authority of state governments over
public health and agriculture.

There is no deterrent liability mechanism thereby facilitating the
giant seed corporations to go more or less unpunished for the grave
dangers that their GM crops can cause to us and our future generations.

BRAI by lowering the bar for GM crop approvals are facilitating the
take over of our farming and food by multinational seed corporations
like Monsanto, thus even challenging our country’s sovereignty.

GM crops and associated chemicals like herbicides are controversial
world-wide due to their harmful effects on human, animal and
environmental health.

Our food and farming will be controlled by bio-tech multinationals and our farmer’s livelihoods will be adversely affected.

GM crops will destroy bio-diversity and can even impact beneficial
insects like bees and butterflies besides contaminating the wild gene
pool.

GM crops once permitted will contaminate regular varieties of crops
as well, thereby leaving no choice for consumers if they want to avoid
GM food, or farmers if they want to avoid GM seeds.

Passing of alien genes from GM crops to other species through contamination is a very real and serious threat.

Corporate control of seeds through GM seed technology is an
established reality. In the 10 years since Bt cotton was approved in
India, Monsanto, through its patented Bt gene controls 95% of cotton
seeds sold.

Our government wants to help foreign corporations, like Monsanto,
dump genetically modified (GM) seeds on our farmers and ultimately GM
food on our plate. They want to create a Biotechnology Regulatory
Authority of India (BRAI) which will approve GM crops, without even
considering your opinion or mine.

Lakhs of people have been protesting against the bill that will
create BRAI. They have succeeded in stalling it for three years, but the
threat of the bill getting cleared still lingers.

You can make this effort to save our food a big success. Join hands with lakhs of people, who have saved our food so far, to prevent
the creation of BRAI.

The BRAI bill was introduced, rather slyly, in the Budget session of
Parliament in 2013. Right now, it’s being reviewed by a Standing
Committee on Science, Technology, Environment and Forests. There are
chances of it being presented again in the Monsoon session of Parliament
in August. We can't let this happen.

This is our chance to make sure that our right to eat safe and
healthy food is not taken away by foreign multinational seed
corporations.

Real story of American Dollar v/s Indian Rupee (Very Interesting Article MUST SHARE) An Advice to all who are worrying about fall of Indian Rupee Throughout the country please stop using cars except for emergency for only seven days (Just 7 days)
Definitely Dollar rate will come down. This is true. The value to
dollar is given by petrol only.This is called Derivative Trading.
America has stopped valuing its Dollar with Gold 70 years ago.
Americans understood that Petrol is equally valuable as Gold so they
made Agreement with all the Middle East countries to sell petrol in
Dollars only. That is why Americans print their Dollar as legal tender
for debts. This mean if you don't like their American Dollar and go to
their Governor and ask for repayment in form of Gold,as in India they
won't give you Gold. You observe Indian Rupee, " I promise to
pay the bearer..." is clearly printed along with the signature of
Reserve Bank Governor. This mean, if you don't like Indian Rupee and ask
for repayment,Reserve Bank of India will pay you back an equal value of
gold.(Actually there may be minor differences in the Transaction
dealing rules, but for easy comprehension I am explaining this)
Let us see an example. Indian petroleum minister goes to Middle East
country to purchase petrol, the Middle East petrol bunk people will say
that liter petrol is one Dollar. But Indians won't have dollars.
They have Indian Rupees. So what to do now? So That Indian Minister will
ask America to give Dollars. American Federal Reserve will take a white
paper , print Dollars on it and give it to the Indian Minister. Like
this we get dollars , pay it to petrol bunks and buy petrol.
But there is a fraud here. If you change your mind and want to give back
the Dollars to America we can't demand them to pay Gold in return for
the Dollars. They will say " Have we promised to return something back
to you? Haven't you checked the Dollar ? We clearly printed on the
Dollar that it is Debt" So, Americans don't need any Gold with them to print Dollars. They will print Dollars on white papers as they like. But what will Americans give to the Middle East countries for selling petrol in Dollars only?
Middle East kings pay rent to America for protecting their kings and
heirs. Similarly they are still paying back the Debt to America for
constructing Roads and Buildings in their countries. This is the value
of American Dollar. That is why Many say some day the Dollar will be
destroyed. At present the problem of India is the result of
buying those American Dollars. American white papers are equal to Indian
Gold. So if we reduce the consumption of petrol and cars, Dollar will
come down The Above Details are translated originally from Telugu Language to English by Radhika Gr. Kindly share this and make everyone aware of the facts of American Dollar V/s Indian Rupee. And here is a small thing other than petrol , what we can do to our Indian Rupee YOU CAN MAKE A HUGE DIFFERENCE TO THE INDIAN ECONOMY BY FOLLOWING FEW SIMPLE STEPS:- Please spare a couple of minutes here for the sake of India. Here's a small example:- At 2008 August month 1 US $ = INR Rs 39.40 At 2013 August now 1 $ = INR Rs 62 Do you think US Economy is booming? No, but Indian Economy is Going Down.
Our economy is in your hands.INDIAN economy is in a crisis. Our country
like many other ASIAN countries, is undergoing a severe economic
crunch. Many INDIAN industries are closing down. The INDIAN economy is
in a crisis and if we do not take proper steps to control those, we will
be in a critical situation. More than 30,000 crore rupees of foreign
exchange are being siphoned out of our country on products such as
cosmetics, snacks, tea, beverages, etc. which are grown, produced and
consumed here. A cold drink that costs only 70 / 80 paise to
produce, is sold for Rs.9 and a major chunk of profits from these are
sent abroad. This is a serious drain on INDIAN economy. We have nothing
against Multinational companies, but to protect our own interest we
request everybody to use INDIAN products only at least for the next two
years. With the rise in petrol prices, if we do not do this, the Rupee
will devalue further and we will end up paying much more for the same
products in the near future. What you can do about it? Buy
only products manufactured by WHOLLY INDIAN COMPANIES.Each individual
should become a leader for this awareness. This is the only way to save
our country from severe economic crisis. You don't need to give-up your
lifestyle. You just need to choose an alternate product. Daily
products which are COLD DRINKS,BATHING SOAP ,TOOTH PASTE,TOOTH BRUSH
,SHAVING CREAM,BLADE, TALCUM POWDER ,MILK POWDER ,SHAMPOO , Food Items
etc. all you need to do is buy Indian Goods and Make sure Indian rupee
is not crossing outside India. Every INDIAN product you buy makes a big difference. It saves INDIA. Let us take a firm decision today.
we are not anti-multinational. we are trying to save our nation. every
day is a struggle for a real freedom. we achieved our independence after
losing many lives. they died painfully to ensure that we live peacefully. the current trend is very threatening.
multinationals call it globalization of indian economy. for indians
like you and me, it is re-colonization of india. the colonist's left
india then. but this time, they will make sure they don't make any
mistakes. russia, s.korea, mexico - the list is very long!! let
us learn from their experience and from our history. let us do the duty
of every true indian. finally, it's obvious that you can't give up all
of the items mentioned above. so give up at least one item for the sake
of our country! We would be sending useless forwards to our
friends daily. Instead, please forward this to all your friends to
create awareness.